Guilt Edged

by Judith Cutler

  I stared at them in horror. They’d let fall – ah, just an old crock basin, one Griff whisked eggs in. It had landed on a le Creuset casserole. More noise than mess. All the same, I found myself crying, and, as usual, once I’d started I found it hard to stop. In no time, I felt Griff’s arms round me, loving me better. Why should that only make it worse?

  But a hissed question stopped me in mid-sob.

  ‘Dear God, the girl can’t be pregnant, can she? Like father, like daughter, you know.’

  Griff spoke before I could. ‘I can think of no one less like her father than Lina. As for pregnancy, that’s her business.’

  ‘And not possible,’ I declared. ‘I shan’t embarrass you with details of my contraception, but believe me, Aidan, it’s foolproof. Which means, in case you’re concerned, that even I can’t mess up.’ Deep-breath time. A big row would be really bad for Griff’s heart, wouldn’t it? ‘Look, I’ll clear up here and then head for home. No doubt I’ll see you at your mate Sir Richard’s place,’ I added, my accent as ugly as I could make it.’ A big hug and kiss for Griff. ‘See you soon. I love you. Don’t worry – I’ll drive as safely as if you were there beside me.’

  ‘My love, I will be there beside you. I’ll get my things while you repack all your precious items.’

  It wasn’t all quite as neat as that. Aidan was full of the most grovelling apologies and kept finding other reasons to keep Griff with him. Most of the time I simply kept out of his way, loading the car with all my purchases, including the book on miniatures I’d left behind last time. I’d also ferried Griff’s luggage, which was pretty minimal but more than he’d come with, since he didn’t care to leave any dirty clothes at Aidan’s. At last, as Aidan almost leapt up and down with anxiety, I said, ‘Come on, Aidan, all lovers have tiffs. But sometimes a little space is good for both partners. I’ll look after him, I promise.’ Maybe my being calm irritated him even more than if I’d lost my temper, as I wanted to. If I had, I knew I’d have well and truly lost it – used words that were general currency when I’d been a street kid and which he probably wouldn’t have understood. But if I had, it wouldn’t have done Griff any good.

  ‘And you’ll be seeing him next weekend,’ I continued, all nice and cheerful and grown-up. Could I be adult enough to say what I ought? I’d try, at least. With a deep breath and in a bit of a rush I said, ‘He’s always told me not to let the sun go down on a quarrel.’ I drifted away to let him take the hint.

  But if he did, Griff didn’t say anything to me as I picked my way home to Bredeham through the misty lanes.

  Once we were safe, his belongings either hung up or in the wash, and he had a glass of his favourite Rioja in his hand, I tried again. Handing him the phone, I said, ‘You know what you told me about quarrels. Go on. You know you ought.’

  Saintly or what? All the same, as I discovered when I logged in to check the day’s emails, I was still shaking with rage. Or terror. All that passing out. This crying business. I couldn’t – could I – be carrying Morris’s child?

  TWENTY

  Tim the Bear was his usual reliable self. Looking at his calm face, I told myself I knew I wasn’t pregnant, didn’t I? If anyone was meticulous in the matter of contraception it was me. Belt and braces. Hardly surprising given my father’s random dispersal of his seed. Meanwhile, I’d better go and see that Griff wasn’t suffering any ill effects from the row and the car journey.

  He didn’t seem to be. He was sitting up in bed looking remarkably perky, in fact, reading glasses perched on his nose and a copy of The Grand Sophy in his hand. A real book, not an electronic one.

  ‘You’ve no idea how wonderful it is to be home,’ he said with a smile that stretched beyond his ears. ‘Home with you. Where I belong. In my own bed – even though it has a new mattress, which you’ll no doubt explain when you’re ready. Aidan and I will always love each other dearly, but life isn’t restful with him. It never has been. Ever. Between ourselves, he’s a teeny bit of a snob. Intellectual as well as social.’ It seemed as though he meant to add something else, but instead he simply stretched out a hand, patting the duvet with the other. ‘You were wonderfully restrained earlier, my love. I’m surprised you didn’t deck him – is that the term? Or let loose some of that wonderful vituperative language you used to employ.’

  I sat beside him. ‘Does vituperative mean very rude? Because I wanted to. But I didn’t want to let you down, and most of all I didn’t want to give you a heart attack.’

  He pointed to a bubble pack of pills, propped up against a glass of water. ‘I think they’re designed to prevent that. Those or the ones I take first thing in the morning. We must devise a system to remind me to take them – I feel so well I’ve nearly forgotten them a couple of times already.’

  ‘Well? How well, on a scale of one to ten?’

  He knew me better than to lie. ‘Probably seven, because I do still get unconscionably tired and there’s still pain from where they sawed my breast bone. But overall I feel better than I’ve felt for months. And the medics assured me that if I do as you tell me – loved one, all that walking! More than I’ve done in years! – then I shall soon feel better still. I can’t imagine wanting to try cycling or swimming, but I was thinking about taking up dancing again. We’d need proper classes, of course – you to learn and me to remember.’

  ‘But you’re still convalescent.’

  ‘In a few more weeks. And there is absolutely no doubt that I can lead dear Mary down the aisle. Has she driven you mad yet, my child?’

  I shook my head. ‘She’s kept me sane! She and Paul. I forgot to tell you she made me find a darling little fur tippet to wear over my bridesmaid’s dress – yes, she assumed that lovely evening dress you bought me in Paris was meant for the wedding.’

  ‘And you said?’ He looked anxious.

  ‘Nothing. She’s been too kind to risk upsetting.’ I caught him yawning.

  ‘But I’ll tell you all our other doings in the morning. Now, where are your painkillers?’

  His shrug told me he neither knew nor cared. ‘I don’t take them any more. If things get desperate I might consider a paracetamol, but I’ve not had one of those for a week or more.’

  Arms akimbo, I demanded, ‘What did your night nurse say about that?’

  ‘I think I’ll save that tale too …’

  Although he still got tired easily, Griff only had difficulty with one thing – pulling on his heavy support socks (like flight socks, only white) after his morning shower. Mary Walker proved a genius with them too, having had to do the same for her late husband, she said.

  ‘Make sure you let him do what he can,’ she whispered to me later. ‘The more independent he can be, the more independent he will be. Of course, doing some things will hurt or tire him, but he’ll know when to stop. Just let him be – and you get on earning our living! Now, I’m off to Ashford on my way home – is there anything you need doing there?’

  I smacked my head: the library book on miniatures. ‘Goodness knows how big a fine I’ll get.’

  ‘Petty cash!’ she said gaily, seizing it.

  Over the next few days, I spent more hours in my workroom working on the bonus-earning vase than I’d have thought possible. Griff assured me it was part of his treatment to carry cups of tea and coffee upstairs, and to prepare lovely light meals for us. The very fact he was in the house with me calmed me down and helped me concentrate. Between times, he selected the items for the weekend sale, walked round Bredeham a very great deal and sometimes dozed.

  When he thought I’d worked long enough, he’d summon me downstairs and I’d find him dressed for whatever the weather was doing, looking for all the world like a dog ready for walkies. Off we’d go together, talking all the time because he was supposed to (something to do with walking at the right pace, which I didn’t really understand), and extending what he called our constitutional by a couple of hundred yards each day. Griff was clearly a man who meant to get fit. And I was a woman who
lost her spots, thank goodness.

  I was half expecting Tris to try for another date – or whatever he liked to call it – but all I saw of him was a broken tail-light as he drove too fast out of the village two evenings in a row. I was happy enough to hope he had a date with another more amenable girl – with deep enough pockets to treat him.

  Had Griff and Aidan not patched up their quarrel, I suppose we could have taken the caravan to the Cotswolds, but he obviously thought that staying under a baronet’s roof was a much better option. I’d even have been happy for Griff to travel down in the luxury of Aidan’s Mercedes, but Aidan was calling in somewhere en route, and Griff assured me that a few hours in our van wouldn’t harm him.

  Since it had taken me till just after nine on Thursday evening to finish the profitable vase, we couldn’t set out till very early on Friday morning. The M20 was clear enough, but as usual the M25 was full of unexplained hold-ups and speed restrictions. Thank goodness for the open road of the M4. Even so, we turned into the grounds of Warebank Court only an hour before the event was open.

  ‘Someone knew his landscape gardening,’ Griff said as I gasped at the vista. Each turn of the long drive gave another stunning view, before eventually the house itself came into view, a mixture of Tudor and Elizabethan, with a quick burst of Georgian somehow pulling everything together. All in lovely Cotswold stone. At this point, as if on cue, the sun broke through. We could have been looking at the set of an upmarket movie.

  Following the signs, I parked in the stable yard, behind the house itself. I made Griff wait in the van while I ferried the boxes of stock, via a dark corridor that reminded me of my father’s wing at Bossingham Hall, to the hall itself. But I had to leave them there. Aidan had made it clear that, as house guests, we had certain obligations to our host, so I dashed back to the van and helped Griff out. Even as I did so, someone arrived to spirit away our cases.

  Sir Richard, in his sixties with a surprisingly gentle face considering he’d spent most of his life in the army presumably killing people, was waiting in the Court’s double-cube entrance hall with a crew of his Reynolds and Gainsborough-painted ancestors. He held out his hand to Griff with what looked a genuine smile of pleasure. My turn next.

  I was afraid that Sir Richard and I should find a mutual loathing inspired by our mutual acquaintance, Aidan, who was standing beside him. I was rattled in any case, given how little time I had for a polite exchange of courtesies, but I did my best to smile and let Griff take centre stage, something he always did very well. In fact my main concern was that Griff’d be so busy hogging the limelight at the fair itself that he’d get overtired. Another was that he’d feel obliged to help me on the stand.

  Aidan introduced me as if I was his protégée, not Griff’s, and had a tendency to bask in what he implied was my glory. I didn’t mind him being nice to me in public; I just wished he’d try a little harder in private.

  Sir Richard was charm itself. Even as he was inviting us all for coffee, he must have seen me glance anxiously at a spectacular long case clock. ‘Ms Townend, would you prefer to take yours in the hall? I’ll get someone to help you, shall I?’ Somehow it wasn’t the sort of question you could say no to. Suddenly, a young man he introduced as Charles, his secretary, materialized. Griff, who might as well have had matchmaker printed on his forehead, beamed happily as we went off together. And why not? Charles must have been a few years older than me, perhaps thirty. He was about five foot eleven, and neatly built. He had a public school accent, but I decided, since he had a lovely voice, not to hold that against him. He had the sort of face you could miss in a crowd, and a very nice smile.

  I’d never met anyone who needed a secretary before, not a private person, anyway. Some time I’d ask what this involved, but not now.

  I followed Charles through a gloomy and under-lit ante-room, where other dealers I didn’t even have time to wave at were clearly ready for action, to the hall where we’d booked our space. He quietly and deftly unpacked our plastic boxes, leaving me to lay the contents out and to adjust the lights. I kept some items back, of course, in the hopes I’d need them to fill the gaps left by nice profitable sales. Not quite to my surprise, Charles seemed to think that returning the empty boxes to the van was part of his job description too, not to mention finding me biscuits to go with the now cold coffee. No wonder people liked to have a secretary.

  Usually, I had time to whizz round all the other stalls, often picking up trade bargains. This time I’d just managed to apply a bit of lippie and greet with a wave my sort-of friend Harvey Sanditon, looking older than I remembered him but as chic as always, when the doors opened. In surged – quietly and politely, but no less ruthlessly for all that – the first wave of exceedingly well-dressed and well-spoken punters.

  ‘And what do you think you’re doing in here?’ I greeted Griff, at what felt very much like lunchtime to someone who’d had breakfast at five and hadn’t had time to eat Charles’s bikkies. ‘Don’t even dream of taking over,’ I added as he started tinkering with my layout. He was right to, of course. I’d not had time between sales to refill the shelves.

  ‘My angel, when you look as fierce as this, I wouldn’t even contemplate the possibility of dreaming. No, I came to press a little flesh – there are so many people here who sent me good wishes, not to mention flowers, aren’t there? It would be churlish not to thank them. Heavens,’ he whispered with a mock shudder, ‘pray tell me that that isn’t Titus Oates lurking over there.’

  ‘He must have a stall in the ante room,’ I said. The dingy space was much more the sort of location that he’d prefer, even if every last item on his stall was as genuine as I hoped and prayed it was. As I looked in his direction, he raised an eyebrow by perhaps half a centimetre. I was being summoned. In response, I opened my eyes a fraction – he’d have to wait.

  None of this went unnoticed by Griff, of course. ‘If you need to powder your nose, dear one, then I believe the ladies’ cloakroom lies that way. Don’t worry – it won’t kill me to keep shop for five minutes.’

  And looking at him I didn’t think it would. Indeed, he’d only sat down for half a minute when his cronies came paying court. So no one would even be looking in my direction as I drifted past Titus.

  ‘Done a spot of spring-cleaning,’ he said. ‘And at your dad’s too. Clean as a whistle.’

  ‘That pile of Elizabethan books,’ I said accusingly.

  ‘Like good Queen Bess herself, each one virgo intacta. Every page in place. Horses?’

  I shook my head. ‘The police don’t seem very interested. Or in the fake high-fired Ruskin.’

  ‘Just in me? Never mind, doll – the filth’ll soon be privatized and run by Americans who wouldn’t know their Adams from their Hepplewhite.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it: half our trade is with Americans these days, and very knowledgeable they are too.’

  ‘Mmm. What’s this about buying miniatures? Not your line.’

  I didn’t ask how he knew. ‘Just liked one in a small lot.’

  ‘But?’ My offhand reply hadn’t deceived him for a nanosecond. His eyes narrowed. ‘Dodgy? Watch it, doll.’ And there he was, gone.

  I used the loo anyway and ran a comb through my hair – no, I’d not had time to have it cut – before heading back to Griff, who was now mysteriously armed with a glass of champagne. Charles, appearing behind him, flashed a most gorgeous smile – I had a nasty idea he thought the huge beam I’d sent Griff was meant for him. But here he was, asking about my lunch preferences – it seemed Sir Richard was worried I’d not taken a break. A sandwich? Salmon or crayfish? And a glass of champagne too? And would I mind, he asked, when a few minutes later he brought a tray loaded with goodies, if he joined me? Since there was no longer any sign of Griff, and I’d seen Harvey leave with a very glamorous Eastern rug expert, I didn’t mind at all.

  ‘Well?’ Griff demanded, appearing from nowhere – had he been taking lessons from Titus? – a minute after Charles had
left with the empty tray. Apart from a few stallholders, most of whom were keeping an eye on their neighbours’ stands for them, the hall was pretty well deserted. Either there were long queues for lunch, or the food, like the so-called snack that Charles had shared with me, was so delicious that they were all lingering over it.

  ‘Well what?’ I parried straight-faced.

  ‘Tell!’ he demanded, sitting down, ready for a long chat.

  ‘About Charles, I suppose,’ I said, with a sigh. ‘Can’t a girl have a secret romance these days?’ I added melodramatically.

  ‘So long as it’s secret between the two of us. Does he make your heart beat faster, loved one?’

  ‘He might do,’ I conceded. ‘Once I get to know him. Him as opposed to facts about him. And I don’t know many of those. He went to some school he seemed to think I should know about but was too polite to seem to mind when I didn’t. Millfield? Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘A public school renowned for sport. Heavens, Lina, several of the England cricket team went there, so you should know that.’

  ‘So I should. But we didn’t mention cricket. He just told me about uni – Durham, I think. History. The trouble is,’ I confessed, ‘I like his voice so much, it’s hard to concentrate on what he’s actually saying.’

  ‘Did he say how he came to work for Richard?’

  ‘Ooooh, we’ve dropped the Sir, have we?’ I crowed mockingly. ‘Isn’t he his godson or something? There’s some family connection. Actually, he kept asking questions about me, which was polite of him.’

  ‘But it’s something you don’t like, isn’t it?’

  ‘Talking about my past, somewhere like this?’ I gestured. ‘It’s a good way to get sent back below stairs, where I belong, isn’t it?’

  ‘Your father wouldn’t agree you belong there,’ Griff said sternly. ‘It’s possibly the only opinion we share, of course.’

  I grinned. Now wasn’t the time to tell him about Pa’s plans for a pad for me at his place. ‘Hey, have you seen your bedroom yet?’